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(KNSI) — A bipartisan bill to reauthorize a program that supports rural healthcare facilities has been signed into law.

Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, who is also a physician, and Minnesota Democratic Senator Tina Smith, who sits on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, worked together on the bill, which allows for information sharing, technical assistance and the delivery of care in rural communities.

The State Office of Rural Health is delivered through the Minnesota Department of Health.

Smith says it’s a bottom up approach and gives an example of the Cloquet Hospital asking for help in obstetrics and getting exactly what it needed in the way of a mobile obstetrics training facility. The hospital and Office of Rural Health partnered to create a space “that allows doctors to practice, upgrade and update their skills delivering babies through simulation training, which is known to be a very effective way of helping people to brush up.”

State Office of Rural Health Reauthorization Act would also be a resource for a doctor in a more rural area to get guidance from a specialist in a larger metropolitan area to share their expertise in prevention and treatment. “Local providers, the hospitals, clinics, emergency medical teams, often they partner with nonprofits that are providing health care in rural communities. And they might be able to provide some dollar resources like they did in Cloquet. And sometimes what they do is they provide data, because sometimes providers in rural communities can feel a little isolated, they don’t really know what’s working in other communities and the Office of Rural Health can give them data and information about what’s going on what’s working, that can help them improve their own practices.”

Smith says residents in rural areas can have challenges in accessing healthcare, such as distance to a hospital or clinic or even finding a provider due to shortages in the industry, and this law will help bridge that gap.

She says she is also looking forward to the partnership between the University of Minnesota and CentraCare teaming up to bring a medical school to St. Cloud “because it would it would be another way of addressing the shortage of providers that are that know how to practice in rural communities.”

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